Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Huawei Technologies Co. said it
plans to overtake Cisco Systems Inc. in three years to become
the world’s biggest seller of telepresence equipment as the
company expands to markets beyond gear for telephone networks.

Huawei’s sales of the equipment that can beam a life-sized
video image around the world doubled to about $200 million last
year, giving Huawei about 20 percent of the global market, Li
Jun, general manager of such products at Huawei’s Enterprise
unit, said in an interview today in Beijing. Cisco has 50
percent of the global market that’s about $900 million, Li said.

The push into video conferencing services is part of
Huawei’s plan to more than triple revenue to $100 billion by
2021, from $32 billion last year. It also comes as Huawei in
July posted a 22 percent drop in first-half operating profit to
8.79 billion yuan ($1.39 billion) as competition intensified in
the telecommunications industry.

China’s largest maker of telephone equipment increased
sales of computing services and video equipment to large
businesses by 57 percent to $1.5 billion last year, Li said.

Huawei’s top-of-the-line telepresence system, the TP3106,
costs $160,000, compared with $300,000 for a similar product
sold by Cisco, Li said. The TP3106 displays high-definition
life-size images across three flat screen televisions to convey
the feeling of being in the same room.

Huawei, based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen,
still expects to meet a full-year target set in April of
expanding sales this year by between 15 percent and 20 percent,
the company said in July. Privately-held Huawei is owned by its
employees.

The company will boost research spending by 20 percent this
year as it expands into cloud computing and mobile devices
including tablet computers and smartphones, Huawei said in
April. Spending this year will rise to $4.5 billion, from $3.76
billion last year, it said.